all blog posts

I haven’t been posting on the blog as much lately, mostly because I’ve been trying to get in the habit of putting my astrophotos on AstroBin.

After the Rocky Mountain Star Stare, I was eager to try setting up the new ED80 rig at home.

This year, I went to the 2026 Rocky Mountain Star Stare.

I’m about to pack up the van for a trip to the 2026 Rocky Mountain Star Stare.

Last Sunday I went to a star party at Sandstone Ranch open space in Douglas County.

Last March, we were driving home from a fun van trip to San Antonio and Austin.

In my last blog post I revisited the Iris Nebula.

The Iris Nebula was one of my two favorite subjects from last year (the other being the Trifid Nebula).

I decided to experiment with stacking in PixInsight, this time combining different exposure times and different gains on the camera.

In April 2026, I finally took the plunge and got a trial license for PixInsight.

I was bothered by the banding in yesterday’s post, so this morning I tried the “Banding Reduction” filter in Siril.

This is the same data as yesterday’s blog post, but I’ve been trying more things with Siril today.

I’ve been very slow to get started with processing, but I’m finally giving Siril a try.

I have been slow to get these last photos out from our recent winter van trip.

We stayed in the Guajome Regional Park a few nights ago.

I missed this photo from my previous blog post.

We went on a trip to the Phoenix, Arizona area, and then on to California.

We camped last night at Saint Vrain State Park.

zsh has been my shell for a very long time.

We had a clear night last night, but I wasn’t sure what to image.

I took three nights’ worth of data on the Tadpole Nebula last month.

I like that Apple shows the day’s reminders in their calendar app.

I’ve been using Obsidian for a little while.

The clear skies last night were a nice Christmas present, allowing me to track the Cone Nebula all night long.

There were some relatively clear skies from December 13th through the 16th.

The weather has been horrible lately.

Way in the past, I’ve formatted my Mac hard drive to be case-sensitive, but that was a big mistake.

It was a very clear night last night!

It’s been mostly cloudy lately, but there were a few passable evenings.

We had some really good aurora borealis last night, even in light polluted suburbs.

I took some images of the Question Mark Nebula, NGC 7822, on October 21/22.

We had some good weather November 1st through 4th.

We have had clear skies for a few days now, and I wasn’t sure what projects to take on.

The Space Koala YouTube channel recently had a video on “making your own smart telescope”, and I found it extremely helpful.

We needed a quick getaway, and decided it would be a good time to do some astrophotography from the road.

Before our recent van trip to Austin, I took some shots of the Crescent Nebula and M 31.

We visited with my brother in Austin this past week (October 12 through 18).

Last night was clear, so I decided to retry the Lobster Claw Nebula.

I’ve been trying to get into astrophotography (obviously).

I decided to devote last night to a better capture of the Ghost Nebula.

Wormwood (my Dwarf 3) has been sitting atop Galaxy (my camper van) for about three days now.

I’m hoping that this blog will be a place where I can share some of the weird, niche coding stuff that I do.

Last night I wanted to get more data from the Horsehead Nebula.

It’s been cloudy and rainy for the last few nights, but last night we got a break.

I’ve started a few blogs over the years, as I suspect many people have.

Exciting nebulae are starting to rise early enough that I can get some imaging done on them!

C 11, the Bubble Nebula, taken across two nights

Date: September 14, 2025 at 07:50:11 PDT Weather: 58°F Cloudy Location: Eastsound, Washington, United States Yesterday I finally accomplished a goal that I’ve been pursuing since we got Galaxy, our Embassy Dolphin SL.

two nights of data on the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, the Heart Nebula, and a comet